The Last Girls

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful story of four reunited friends...
Review: This book is like a quilt- it weaves the fabric of four women's lives together as they reunite on a steamboat to toss the ashes of one of their best friends into the Mississippi River. The women met originally when they were just young girls at a women's college. While in school they made a raft and sailed down the Mississippi River together. The novel picks up when the women are reunited thirty years later on the same river. Each character has had a fulfilling, complicated life that unfolds in each chapter. Their lives are far from the 'innocence' of their youth. But the one thing that remains constant is their strong bond as women and friends. Maybe I'm biased to love this book because I went to a women's college in Virginia an hour away from the author's college and can vividly remember places, universities and situations that she writes about. But I think any woman would relate to this book- the struggles we all go through in the courses of our lives leading into the unknown and the people along for the ride with us. I'm eager to read more of Ms. Smith's novels and have recommended Last Girls to all of my friends, my sisters really, from Mary Baldwin College.

Rating:
Summary: Good idea but falls short
Review: This was the first book of hers I have read and I was hoping for more. I like her style of writing but I think she tried to do too much she tried to make each person's life too "mysterious". I don't understand why she spent so much time on Russell, he was not on the original trip I assume he was used for 'comic relief' and I did enjoy his character - but I think he took away from the Girls that the story is suppose to be about.
No one truly seemed to know each other or truly cared to learn more about each other. Even though the idea of growing into adulthood and going down river is a great one - they were still the same self-centered girls they were in college....except Harriet. Then the girls continued to treat Harriet the same way they treated her in college - like a doormat.
Then to find out that Baby didn't even plan to have her ashes dumped in the river in the first place - her husband decided for her, but didn't even go on the trip. I think he should have been there - more so than Russell.

Then ending the story with information on the other girls who were on the original trip - who cares??